The present invention generally pertains to frequency dividers and is particularly directed to portable, batteryless, frequency dividers of type that are included in tags that are used in presence detection systems.
Portable, batteryless, frequency dividers are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,481,428 to Lincoln H. Charlot, Jr. and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,670,740 to Fred Wade Herman and Lincoln H. Charlot, Jr.
The frequency divider described in the '428 patent includes a resonant first circuit that is resonant at a first frequency for receiving electromagnetic radiation at the first frequency, and a second resonant circuit that is resonant at a second frequency that is one-half the first frequency for transmitting electromagnetic radiation at the second frequency; and the two resonant circuits are electrically connected to one another by a semiconductor switching device having gain coupling the first and second resonant circuits for causing the second circuit to transmit electromagnetic radiation at the second frequency solely in response to unrectified energy at the first frequency provided in the first circuit upon receipt of electromagnetic radiation at the first frequency. Each resonant circuit includes a fixed capacitance connected in parallel with an inductance coil. In order to minimize difficulties due to magnetic coupling between the coils when tuning the resonant circuits to their respective resonant frequencies the coils are disposed perpendicular to each other so that the magnetic fields of the two coils are orthogonal to each other. In one current embodiment of this frequency divider that utilizes an air core coil for the first resonant circuit and a ferrite core coil for the second resonant circuit, the inside diameter of the air core coil is much larger than the diameter of the ferrite core coil to further minimize the magnetic coupling between the coils.
The frequency divider described in the '740 patent consists of a single resonant circuit consisting of an inductor and a diode or varactor connected in parallel with the diode or varactor to define a resonant circuit that detects electromagnetic radiation at a first predetermined frequency and responds to said detection by transmitting electromagnetic radiation at a second frequency that is one-half the first frequency, wherein the circuit is resonant at the second frequency when the voltage across the diode or varactor is zero.
Although the frequency divider described in the '740 patent is less complex than the frequency divider described in the '428 patent, whereby the former may be manufactured less expensively and packaged more compactly in a tag for attachment to an article to be detected by a presence detection system, the former also is less efficient in initiating frequency division from the energy of the detected electromagnetic radiation, since the frequency divider circuit is resonant at only the second frequency.